Classical antiquity

The Punic language, also called Phoenicio-Punic or Carthaginian, is an extinct variety of the Phoenician language, a Canaanite language of the Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages. An offshoot of the Phoenician language of coastal West Asia (modern Lebanon and north western Syria), it was principally spoken on the Mediterranean coast of Northwest Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and several Mediterranean islands, such as Malta, Sicily, and Sardinia by the Punic people, or western Phoenicians, throughout classical antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD.

Cirta, also known by various other names in antiquity, was the ancient Berber and Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria.

Cirta was the capital city of the Berber kingdom of Numidia; its strategically important port city was Russicada. Although Numidia was a key ally of the ancient Roman Republic during the Punic Wars (264–146 BC), Cirta was subject to Roman invasions during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. Eventually it fell under Roman dominion during the time of Julius Caesar. Cirta was then repopulated with Roman colonists by Caesar and Augustus and was surrounded by the autonomous territory of a "Confederation of Four Free Roman cities" (with Chullu, Russicada, and Milevum), ruled initially by Publius Sittius. The city was destroyed in the beginning of the 4th century and was rebuilt by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who gave his name to the newly constructed city, Constantine. The Vandals damaged Cirta, but Emperor Justinian I reconquered and improved the Roman city. It declined in importance after the Muslim invasions, but a small community continued at the site for several centuries. Its ruins are now an archaeological site.

The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia, formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to the northern area around the Caspian Sea, where it ends at the Ural-Caspian narrowing, which joins it with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia, making it a part of the larger Eurasian Steppe. Geopolitically, the Pontic–Caspian Steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania through Moldova, southern and eastern Ukraine, through the North Caucasus of southern Russia, and into the Lower Volga region where it straddles the border of southern Russia and western Kazakhstan. Biogeographically, it is a part of the Palearctic realm, and of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.

The area corresponds to Cimmeria, Scythia, and Sarmatia of classical antiquity. Across several millennia, numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen used the steppe; many of them went on to conquer lands in the settled regions of Central and Eastern Europe, West Asia, and South Asia.

The Inner Hebrides (/ˈhɛbrɪdiːz/ HEB-rid-eez; Scottish Gaelic: na h-Eileanan a-staigh, lit. 'the Inner Isles') is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate. The Inner Hebrides comprise 35 inhabited islands as well as 44 uninhabited islands with an area greater than 30 hectares (74 acres). Skye, Mull, and Islay are the three largest, and also have the highest populations. The main commercial activities are tourism, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling. In modern times the Inner Hebrides have formed part of two separate local government jurisdictions, one to the north and the other to the south. Together, the islands have an area of about 4,130 km (1,594 sq mi), and had a population of 18,948 in 2011. The population density is therefore about 4.6 inhabitants per square kilometre (12 inhabitants per square mile).

There are various important prehistoric structures, many of which pre-date the first written references to the islands by Roman and Greek authors. In the historic period the earliest known settlers were Picts to the north and Gaels in the southern kingdom of Dál Riada prior to the islands becoming part of the Suðreyjar kingdom of the Norse, who ruled for over 400 years until sovereignty was transferred to Scotland by the Treaty of Perth in 1266. Control of the islands was then held by various clan chiefs, principally the MacLeans, MacLeods and MacDonalds. The Highland Clearances of the 19th century had a devastating effect on many communities and it is only in recent years that population levels have ceased to decline.

The Thamud (Arabic: ثَمُود, romanized: Ṯamūd) were an ancient tribe or tribal confederation in pre-Islamic Arabia that occupied the northwestern Arabian Peninsula. They are attested in contemporaneous Mesopotamian and Classical inscriptions, as well as Arabic ones from the eighth century BCE, all the way until the fifth century CE, when they served as Roman auxiliaries. They are also later remembered in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and Islamic-era sources, including the Quran. Prominently, they appear in the Ruwafa inscriptions discovered in a temple constructed circa 165–169 CE in honor of the local deity, ʾlhʾ.

Islamic sources state that the Thamud were an early Arab tribe that had gone extinct in ancient days. Thamud appears twenty-six times in the Quran, where the tribe is presented as an example of an ancient polytheistic people destroyed by God for their rejection of God's prophet Salih. In the Quran, Thamud is associated with a pattern of rebellion and destruction of past groups of people. This is done the most times with Ad, but others as well, like Lot and Noah. When Salih calls Thamud to serve one God, they demand a sign from him. He presents them with a miraculous she-camel. Thamud, unconvinced, injure the camel; for this, God destroys them, except Salih and his followers. This account is embellished with a more detailed background in the Islamic exegetical tradition. Some traditions locate the tribe in northwestern Arabia at Hegra, and in others they are identified as Nabataeans. Islamic genealogy describes the Thamud as among the true Arab tribes, as opposed to the "Arabicized Arabs".

Mixed government (or a mixed constitution) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived in Aristotle's Politics as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny. The idea was popularized during classical antiquity in order to describe the stability, the innovation and the success of the republic as a form of government developed under the Roman constitution.

Unlike classical democracy, aristocracy or monarchy, under a mixed government rulers are elected by citizens rather than acquiring their positions by inheritance or sortition (at the Greco-Roman time, sortition was conventionally regarded as the principal characteristic of classical democracy).

Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning.Culture is increasingly seen as a process, involving the social transmittance of behavior among peers and between generations. It can involve the transmission of novel behaviors or regional variations that are independent of genetic or ecological factors.

The existence of culture in non-humans has been a contentious subject, sometimes forcing researchers to rethink "what it is to be human".The notion of culture in other animals dates back to Aristotle in classical antiquity, and more recently to Charles Darwin, but the association of other animals' actions with the actual word 'culture' originated with Japanese primatologists' discoveries of socially-transmitted food behaviours in the 1940s. Evidence for animal culture is often based on studies of feeding behaviors, vocalizations, predator avoidance, mate selection, and migratory routes.

Italians (Italian: italiani, pronounced [itaˈljaːni]) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. Their ancestors, differing regionally, include all the various ancient peoples of Italy and among them the Romans, who helped create and evolve the Italian identity.The Latin equivalent of the term Italian had been in use for natives of the geographical region since antiquity. Ethnic Italians (a group which includes people of Italian descent without Italian citizenship) can be distinguished from Italian nationals, who are citizens of Italy regardless of ancestry or nation of residence.

The majority of Italian nationals are native speakers of the country's official language, Italian, a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin. However, some of them also speak a regional or minority language native to Italy, the existence of which predates the national language. (According to UNESCO, there are approximately 30 languages native to Italy, although many are often misleadingly referred to as "Italian dialects".)

Late antiquity is a period of time that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, though the exact start and end dates are debated. Late antiquity represents a cultural sphere covering much of the Mediterranean world, including parts of Europe and the Near East.

Late antiquity was an era of massive political and religious transformation. Religiously, it marked the origins or ascendance of the three major monotheistic religions: Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, and Islam, as well as the period when both the Bible and the Quran were canonized. Politically, it marked the ends of the Western Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire (the last Persian empire of antiquity), as well as the beginning of the Arab conquests and the formation of the Rashidun Caliphate. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire became a militarized and Christianized society. Late antiquity was also an era of significant cultural innovation and transformation, marked by the emergence of public architecture like the Hagia Sophia, and the emergence of late antique literature and art.

This is the list of ancient architectural records consists of record-making architectural achievements of the Greco-Roman world from c. 800 BC to 600 AD.